WORLD KHI

Scientists detect SARS-CoV-2 virus; EU exports over 1m vaccines; Italian police clash with protesters: Singapore to expand no-quarantine scheme

Ag AFP

Singapore: Fully vaccinated travellers from eight countries will be able to enter Singapore without quarantine from Tuesday, as the business hub eases restrictions and gears up to live with the coronavirus.

The city-state initially fought the pandemic by shutting borders, lockdowns of varying intensity and aggressive contact tracing but with more than 80 percent of the population fully vaccinated, authorities in the global aviation hub are keen to revive the economy.

They opened travel lanes for vaccinated passengers from Brunei and Germany in September, and will expand the scheme from Tuesday to another eight countries -- Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.

The lane with South Korea will start November 15. Under the policy, passengers will not have to quarantine if they have been fully vaccinated and tested negative for the coronavirus before they depart and on arrival.

"Singapore cannot stay locked down and closed off indefinitely," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on October 9, when he announced a raft of measures under the "Living with Covid-19" strategy. Lee pointed to the Delta coronavirus variant as a factor.

"The Delta variant is highly infectious, and has spread all over the world. Even with the whole population vaccinated, we still will not be able to stamp it out," he said. "Almost every country has accepted this reality."

In addition to focusing on home care for mild and asymptomatic domestic cases, Lee said Singapore needed to resume international travel. The city-state is home to the regional offices of thousands of multi-national corporations, which rely on Singapore’s status as a business and aviation hub for their operations.

"We must continue to re-open our borders safely," Lee said. "Companies and investors need to carry out regional and global business from Singapore. People working for them need to travel to earn a living."

And the success of the city-state’s vaccinated lanes project may boost the recovery in the global aviation industry, which was hammered by the pandemic. "We hope the positive actions taken by Singapore will spur other markets to similarly navigate their pathways towards restarting air travel," said Philip Goh, Asia-Pacific vice president at aviation industry group IATA.

Meanwhile, a team from Australia's national science agency has successfully tested the wastewater from long-haul flights for traces of the virus that causes Covid-19. In a study published on Monday, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said it detected trace elements of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater samples from 24 of 37 flights carrying returning Australians from Covid-19 hotspots.

In order to fly to Australia from overseas passengers must test negative for Covid-19 within 72 hours of departure.

The CSIRO findings prove that coronavirus can be detected in wastewater before carriers show symptoms. Warish Ahmed, the lead author of the study, said wastewater testing could be a valuable method to screen incoming passengers for Covid-19 as Australia reopens to the world after 18 months.

"It provides an extra layer of data if there is a possible lag in viral detection in deep nasal and throat samples and if passengers are yet to show symptoms," he said in a media release.

"The rapid on-site surveillance of wastewater at points of entry may be effective for detecting and monitoring other infectious agents that are circulating globally and provide alert to future pandemics."

According to the CSIRO, infected people can shed the virus in their faeces two to five days before developing symptoms. However, it can also be detected in people who were previously infected but are no longer infectious.

As of Monday morning, Australia reported 2,185 new locally acquired Covid-19 infections and 12 deaths. In a related development, the European Union has exported "over one billion" doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the past 10 months, the bloc’s chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday.

"Very clearly, the European Union is the largest exporter of Covid-19 vaccines," she said, announcing the "important milestone" in a brief broadcast and statement. Von der Leyen said that 87 million of the doses had been funnelled through the WHO-led Covax scheme to mid- and low-income countries.

Most of the exports are orders paid for by other countries for Covid-19 vaccine doses manufactured in the EU. Von der Leyen said that, separate from the export figure, "the EU will donate in the next months at least 500 million doses to the most vulnerable countries". She urged other countries "to step up, too".

Her declaration comes in the context of a sharp divide between wealthier regions and poorer ones in terms of Covid vaccination rates. The European Union, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Singapore and Japan all among those to have more than half of their populations fully vaccinated.

Many countries in Africa and other places such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Myanmar and Syria have less than 10 percent of their people inoculated. The European Union, which has 65.6 percent of its population fully inoculated according to an AFP tally of official statistics, has been stepping up exports of vaccines.

Meantime, police in Italy used water cannon and tear gas against protesters at the northeastern port of Trieste on Monday following a three-day demonstration against a new mandatory workplace Covid pass.

Dozens of police in riot gear faced off against hundreds of remaining demonstrators and port workers who began blocking one of the port entrances Friday to protest the introduction of the "Green Pass". "Liberty, liberty!" shouted protesters, as others yelled "We’re not violent, put down your shields".

Police managed to clear the entrance after a few hours of standoff, pushing demonstrators to a nearby parking lot from which they then marched towards the city centre. Italian news agency AGI reported that by Friday afternoon, more than a thousand protesters were participating in a sit-in at Trieste’s main plaza.

Trieste dock workers had called a strike Friday despite being offered free Covid tests, and their protest attracted demonstrators from out of town. The Green Pass, which offers proof of vaccination, recent recovery from Covid-19 or a negative test, became mandatory in all workplaces on Friday throughout Italy. The new regulation spurred a wave of protests across the country, although most were small and not disruptive.

More than 6,500 people demonstrated at the Trieste port, however, at the height of the protest Friday. Although more than 85 percent of Italians over the age of 12 have received at least one vaccine dose, qualifying them for the pass, there remain up to three million workers estimated to be unvaccinated